Reviewing events stretching back to 2010, when the Obama administration decided not to charge suspects with any wrongdoing, Donald Trump’s government appears to be taking an altogether different stance, the Washington Post reports.

Trump himself is thought to have been caught up in WikiLeaks’ Vault 7 data dump last month, with information “implying” the CIA spied on him and his family.

“While we do our best to quietly collect information on those who pose a very real threat to our country, individuals such as Julian Assange and Edward Snowden seek to use that information to make a name for themselves,” CIA Director Mike Pompeo said in a briefing last week.

“...WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service.”

CIA hacked SWIFT

The CIA has faced troubling times in light of Vault 7, with a separate claim by hacker group Shadow Brokers surfacing this month that it had obtained further material relating to the intelligence agency.

The data obtained suggested the CIA had infiltrated the SWIFT money transfer network in order to monitor payments from certain Middle Eastern sources.

In the run-up to the French presidential election, meanwhile, WikiLeaks countered in a tweet on Thursday that several candidates had vowed to offer diplomatic protection to both Assange and Snowden.

French presidential candidates Melenchon, Le Pen, Asselineau and Hamon have all vowed to give Assange and/or Snowden citizenship or asylum.